DVB world dvb-s2 will not record files larger than 4gb

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wildboys

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Feb 14, 2004
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I have the DVBworld S2 Usb box.The box works find but it will not let you record
files larger than 4gb.Is there any way to get over this limitation.
 
May even be an operating system limitation on file size. 4 GB is 32 bits, so it may be a function of using a 32bit operating system.
:?

{edit} What Updatelee said. Save your files on an NTFS volume to get around 32 bit limitations of the older system.
 
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Yes, the DVBworld box does unfortunately has this limitation or perhaps I should say the software that comes with the DVBworld box has this limitation. In this case it's not an operating system issue nor a filesystem issue, but seems to be a limitation of the DVBworld software itself. This is one of the reasons, I really wish we could get Tsreader support for this device. The software that comes with it, though usable most of the time, is not really that great and seems to have lots of little annoying quirks and bugs. I discovered a new one just today. Apparently on some signals with very high bitrate (>50Mbit) 4:2:2 Mpeg2 video, when you try to record it just gives you a 0 byte file as a result. It had no issues rendering the video (with the right codec and enough CPU muscle to handle it of course). So, it's not a bandwidth issue, but for some reason it just wouldn't record the stream. It would attempt to but produce a zero byte file. Anyway, this is just an example of how buggy and unpolished the DVBworld software really is. As for the 4gb recording limitation, my guess is someone used a 32 bit pointer in their code where they should've used something larger.

Anyway, in this case, it's not an operating system, file system, CPU, etc. issue. It's design flaw in the software. Instead it splits the recording into multiple files. What you can do if you really want one big file is use a piece of software like videoredo to join them into a single large file. For the time being I'm afraid that's the only option.
 
Yes, the DVBworld box does unfortunately has this limitation or perhaps I should say the software that comes with the DVBworld box has this limitation. In this case it's not an operating system issue nor a filesystem issue, but seems to be a limitation of the DVBworld software itself. This is one of the reasons, I really wish we could get Tsreader support for this device. The software that comes with it, though usable most of the time, is not really that great and seems to have lots of little annoying quirks and bugs. I discovered a new one just today. Apparently on some signals with very high bitrate (>50Mbit) 4:2:2 Mpeg2 video, when you try to record it just gives you a 0 byte file as a result. It had no issues rendering the video (with the right codec and enough CPU muscle to handle it of course). So, it's not a bandwidth issue, but for some reason it just wouldn't record the stream. It would attempt to but produce a zero byte file. Anyway, this is just an example of how buggy and unpolished the DVBworld software really is. As for the 4gb recording limitation, my guess is someone used a 32 bit pointer in their code where they should've used something larger.

Anyway, in this case, it's not an operating system, file system, CPU, etc. issue. It's design flaw in the software. Instead it splits the recording into multiple files. What you can do if you really want one big file is use a piece of software like videoredo to join them into a single large file. For the time being I'm afraid that's the only option.

I have sent dvbword several emails about this issue with no response.Like
you said it's not a file system issue.I am using vista 64 bit OS.I
don't think anyone uses fat32 anymore. Thanks for the info.
 
How do you know its the box? I can't imagine how that could be. The box just passes the bits and bytes to the software application, what software are you using?
No its not the box.It is the dvbworld software that causes the problem.If I use dvbdream i do not have the problem but dvbdream does not support DVB-S2
signals.
 
many software apps have learned to live with ...

This old limitation of "I'll record in 4gb chunks, but I can play 'em back transparently" has been around a long time.
Lots of applications can handle those files, if in fact that's what is written.
All you really have to do is a binary copy of all the files together to make one file.
And as mentioned, VideoReDo is happy to suck in such file collections.

Now, if the software stops writing after the first 4gb chunk, or if the player software won't automatically and transparently play through the transition of one file to the next, then you really have something to bitch about.


As for FAT32 usage these days ... :)
... the Visonsat FTA receiver formats its USB drive in FAT 32, and writes in 4gb chunks.
Again, it plays back seamlessly.
Using VideoReDo, I had no trouble recovering 5gb recordings (4gb + 1gb) to make a DVD.

edit: A friend records 24 hours at a time (around 24gb), and then carves it up with VideoReDo like it was just a single file.
 
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Someone mentioned DvbViewer in the other dvbworld thread. I can't verify (yet) that the Dvbworld will work with DvbViewer. I do know that DvbViewer supports dvb-s2. Maybe I will be able to tell you next week:D

As far as writing larger files, a one hour recording of Lost from the high bit rate ABC HD feed (not dvb-s2) is 19GB for one hour! That is on XP with NTFS. I think I had my max file size set to 21GB.
 
It records all the stuff... you just have to use software to piece it all back together after the fact. I don't have the s2, but do have the usb world box and have used it to record many hours of recordings on multiple occasions. I think the reason a lot of software splits up recordings like that is because there used to be 4gb max file size limit in Windows. The various video software companies got around this by just creating a new file and breaking them up at 4 gigs. Actually, it's probably good that this sort of thing happens. Some video software will choke if your computer's specs aren't tip of the top of the bleeding edge and you are trying to open video files that are gigantic monsters in file sizes. Adobe Premiere is really bad about this sort of thing since it is such a resource hog.
 
If you have 30+ shows recorded in one directory, it makes for much easier house keeping if they are not broken up into smaller files.
 
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